Cheating in sport is as old as sport itself

According to ASADA boss, Richard Ings yesterday was “the blackest day in Australian sport.” The report of the Australian Crime Commission’s investigation into professional sport in Australia reveals troubling evidence of doping and the involvement of organised crime, giving rise to concerns of match fixing across all football codes and cricket.

A second report which names alleged perpetrators in doping and match fixing has not been made available to the public. It has been passed to the Australian Federal Police for action. It is likely that some high profile prosecutions will take place.

Cheating in sport is as old as sport itself. That’s not to say that cheating is acceptable but history provides some much needed context so we don’t immediately assume that these nefarious activities are limited to modern professional sport.

The grandfather of cheating in sport is Dr William Gilbert Grace. The most famous story about Grace’s cheating has the doctor clean bowled early in his innings only to pick up the bails and return them to their place atop the stumps before gesturing to the crowd and telling the bowler, “They didn’t come to watch you bowl. They came to watch me bat.”

It is an apocryphal yarn designed to encapsulate Grace’s rough and ready approach to the rules. He was a “whatever it takes” sportsman, a phrase the Essendon Football Club now wishes it didn’t use as their motto for this year’s AFL season.

A cricket team consisting of some of England’s best players, known as W.G. Grace’s XI, toured Australia in 1873-74. In one match played at Moore Park, Grace was given out LBW by the umpire but steadfastly refused to walk. A riot ensued involving the rowdy colonials in the cheap seats who stormed the pitch. It was only the intervention of the man who would become Australia’s first Prime Minister, Sir Edmond Barton that prevented the match from being abandoned. Barton agreed to step in as umpire. Grace batted on.

Grace performed some of his lowest acts at the toss of the coin. In the days of uncovered pitches, controlling which team batted first, be it in on a wet and soon to be sticky wicket or on a beautifully prepared dry, flat track more or less determined the result of the match.

One story tells it best. The Harrow School had arranged to invite the best players in England to play their schoolboy team. Grace was to lead the Invitation XI. No doubt some of the Harrow boys had sleepless nights as the match loomed wondering how they would get on against England’s finest. Some may have dared to dream of Boys’ Own Annual heroics, perhaps smiting the last ball of the match to the boundary to give the school an unlikely victory.

When the day arrived, the Harrow skipper stood at the pitch examining its surface. It was a road; a batsman’s paradise. Grace appeared at the wicket. He peered at the pitch before roughly shaking the young lad’s hand. The good doctor then hurled a florin in to the air, catching it with his right hand and slapping it down on the back of his left. Grace’s right hand obscured the coin from the Harrow skipper’s view.

The young lad must have known that something was wrong. This was not how gentlemen affected the toss of the coin but looking at the large, beaded colossus before him, a ruction was out of the question.

“Heads or tails?” Grace inquired.

“Um… heads, Sir?” the Harrow skipper asked.

Grace looked under his hand and shook his head. Shoving the florin back into his pocket, Grace turned around and began to march back to the pavilion.

“We’ll bat,” the bearded one said emphatically.

And bat the England Invitation XI did. For the entire three days of the match. There was no declaration, sporting or otherwise. There would be no Boys’ Own Annual heroics. The young Harrow lads didn’t even get to put the pads on. The England Invitation XI batted and batted and batted. The Harrow boys chased leather around the field for three days.

The England Invitation XI didn’t care who won or lost. The result was meaningless. They were all getting paid – Grace more than anyone but Grace determined that his team could do without the rigours of fielding and bowling.

Somewhere in Harrow’s archives a score sheet exists, a record of that farrago of a match which reads something like this: England Invitation XI 6/738 c.c. (compulsorily closed), Harrow XI D.N.B. (Did Not Bat). Match drawn.

Of course, cheating in cricket is not restricted to Grace. Indeed, the game in the 17th and 18th centuries was invariably played for money. Match fixing in cricket is centuries older than the founding of Pakistan.

The 1900 Paris Olympics featured just one game of cricket, won by Great Britain. The Brits beat a team nominally described as French. In reality, the French team consisted almost entirely of diplomatic staff from the British embassy in Paris. Unsurprisingly, Britain won gold; the one and only gold medal awarded in cricket at the Olympic Games.

The 1908 London Olympics was a rolling episode of cheating. In those days there were no impartial officials. The officials were all British and damned proud of it. Knowing they would get the rub of the green, British athletes responded by winning more than three times the medals won by any other competing nation, including 56 gold.

Johnny William Henry Tyler Douglas was a talented middleweight boxer who represented Great Britain in the 1908 Olympics. His middle initials became the subject of much mirth for Australian cricket fans during England’s 1920-21 tour of Australia where he became known as Johnny “Won’t Hit Today” Douglas. In the 1908 Olympics Douglas faced up to Sydney boxer, Reg “Snowy” Baker in the final. It was said to be a wonderful exhibition of the pugilistic arts but Baker clearly had Douglas’s measure.

In what amounted to a shock decision, Douglas was awarded the fight on points. It transpired that Douglas’s father was the referee.

The 400m men’s race became a shambles when the British officials disqualified one of the American runners, John Carpenter, for a perfectly legitimate manoeuvre. A furore ensued and the British officials decided to re-run the race but determined that Carpenter’s disqualification would stand. Two of the three remaining runners in the field, both Americans, refused to run in protest so the British runner, Wyndham Halswelle, walked around the track at an ambling pace to win the gold medal.

In the days of Grace and Douglas cheating was referred to euphemistically as “gamesmanship.” Now we don’t mess about. It’s cheating. Certainly, cheating is more complex and sophisticated now than it was then. The rewards in professional sport are counted in the millions. In Grace’s day it was simply the business of beating an opponent by hook or by crook.

Now sporting clubs in the major football codes are facing the embarrassing and destructive revelations that they may have engaged in criminal conspiracies.

That athletes might cheat should come as no surprise to any sports fan. It’s been going on well before W.G. Grace sprouted a little bum fluff above his upper lip. These days, Grace is regarded fondly as the father of modern cricket with much of his cheating downplayed, translated into amusing anecdotes of a man who would do whatever it took to win.

The mindset has not changed but the consequences of cheating must. This generation’s sports cheats must not be let off the hook.

Your Comments

?SUSPICIOUS ‘vials’ of urine found by police in the Gold Coast Titans dressing rooms were in fact an old jam jar.?
Depends if it was Cape Gooseberry - the only vial jam I know of.

Trevor3130Fri 08 Feb 13 (12:49pm)

Jack, would you care to wager on the likelihood that a CEO may have his collar felt, in preference to a low-ranking, mug player?
“Click here if you have read & understood the Terms & Conditions.”

Jack the InsiderFri 08 Feb 13 (01:09pm)

Click.

chrisFri 08 Feb 13 (01:14pm)

Jack, the 1994-95 US baseball series was cancelled due to a salary cap dispute. The revenue of a year of baseball lost is equivelant to all Australian sports combined . Just shit can it for a year until this blows over and take up up watching Sumo Wrestling. The suspensions to be handed down early- mid season (clubs and individual players) could make this a punters paradise. The TAB are already on to it.

My Webster’s gives cheating as “a fraud obtained by deception”. I think it’s bit more than this - we tend to think of cheating as lying and deceiving in order to break an agreement or vow which is not necessarily illegal. We, for example, speak of a spouse “cheating on “ husband or wife when they are conducting an illicit sexual affair.
Your stories of W.G .Grace show a man who was a bully, as far as I can see, and one who had no scruples about giving himself every advantage to win - not all of them cheating.
What it does show is that cheating is an aspect of the particular moral code, the values held, by certain human beings. As such, it will be found everywhere, in all endeavors in which there is an element of competition and hierarchy with rewards for climbing to the top.
Sport can never hope to be exempt from this, and certainly wont be by rules and punishments. It’s in the nature of the cheat to want to deceive to break rules, after all. If you want cheats out, go looking for character, for people of moral rectitude, and start to do whatever you can to promote this in society. It’s the only way to eliminate, as far as can be, the worst and bigger cheats, those at the top of politics and big corporate business, whose cheating harms many innocent people way down the ladder.

Jack the InsiderFri 08 Feb 13 (01:37pm)

When the fair minded, generous and brilliant Victor Trumper died suddenly in June 1915, the news of his death took the Great War off the front pages albeit briefly in both Australia and England. When Grace died four months later, his death barely rated a mention. Maybe cheats don’t prosper posthumously, Isabella.

Jean BaptisteFri 08 Feb 13 (01:19pm)

Great article JTI.

As I keep saying, even God couldn’t trust those pommy bastards in the dark.
Brittania Waives The Rules.

MavisFri 08 Feb 13 (01:19pm)

Jack, I know our PM is Dogs supporter, but a couple of blogs ago you were looking for ALP slogans for the 2013 election. Any chance the boys from Sussex street might do the Bombers a favor and offer to take “Whatever it takes” off their hands?

Jack the InsiderFri 08 Feb 13 (01:33pm)

It was the title of Graham Richardson’s book so there may be a rights’ issue, Mavis.

AJPFri 08 Feb 13 (01:21pm)

As long as it is not my team / my team’s players / my team’s administration that is on the hook or held out to dry.

Given the wideth of the net I get the feeling this fishing expedition is going to catch some scapegoats.

The Bow-Legged SwantoonFri 08 Feb 13 (01:28pm)

I reckon if you went back further there would have been instances of slaves in the Colosseum trying to bribe the guards to slip the lions a Christian or two to slow them down before their big appearance.

BrisBenFri 08 Feb 13 (01:31pm)

Hi Jack, Yes it is a sad day: us mug punters all thinking noses were clean, blood isn’t doped and injections not forthcoming, when the rewards are substantial for beating the other poor blighter (to retain the Grace era euphemism).
Now it’s out it only seems a confirmation rather than a surprise; sadly. I still hate that cyclist bloke though.

Jack I am cheating now. I have not read your blog in some weeks but I will happily have a misinformed opinion. I do not understand what all these peptide supplements are about. A very nicely cooked steak is full of peptides i.e. bits of protein that build strong muscles.
It is the active peptides (hormones) that act on human receptor molecules that can be performance enhancing. Some of these are EPO which stimulates red blood cell production, EGF or HGF which can stimulate healing and enhanced muscle growth. There are more but I doubt that shonky ‘diet supplements’ contain any. These substances need to be injected in very carefully regulated regular amounts to have any ‘sporting’ advantage. A regimen of exercise is also a great part of this. Only very sophisticated labs can produce these in the amounts needed. We are talking genetic engineering where the genes that produce these hormones are put into mammalian cell culture for mass production.
If there is any cheating it will be very carefully calculated and very carefully administered. Eating your mothers apple pie or Lister’s Vindaloo can never be blamed! Bert

Jack the InsiderFri 08 Feb 13 (01:48pm)

Good to see you back, Bert. Heads or tails?

Trevor3130Fri 08 Feb 13 (01:44pm)

Further, Jack, my advice to someone who was being paid megabucks to be always at the “top of the game”, while the “blackest day” swirls around, is simple. Get yourself strapped into a Holter monitor and book a pre-emptive, urgent call to the cardiologist. As soon as your heart skips a beat, Whoooosh! lights & sound, if you please, and run over that pack of players’ managers.

Jack the InsiderFri 08 Feb 13 (01:49pm)

In what may well be unrelated news the average life expectancy of an NFL player is 54, Trev.

Quite so old chap. But lets have the whole horrible truth, let the scales fall from our eyes. The christians no doubt also bribed the guards to slip a few slaves to the lions.

Gee wizz, why didn’t I see this coming? All this time I’ve been watching those blokes with the mad eyes, the sloping shoulders and the neck muscles pushing their ears forward and I never suspected a thing.
Talk about a JB Stetson chamberpot.

AnnieFri 08 Feb 13 (02:00pm)

And you have to wonder what it will all achieve. The organisers who will be well hidden by the “right mates” will only be concerned about how much info they have, and then will act accordingly. Where there is gambling there is always going to be graft and fraud. Fixed pokies, nobbled horses and dogs, game fixing, drugs that are not even on the radar, how do you stop it. There is so much money in these clubs, there is so much expectation of a “Premiership” there is so much wheeling and dealing, and don’t lets forget the Melbourne Storm not so long ago. I think all you can do is take YOUR club at face value, and hope they don’t get beaten by the cheats, its not going to stop, too much money, too much power, just driven further underground. PS. Wraith from previous blog, I am glad you are healing, look at this way you are still above the ground not below it, and you have learnt like so many others that if life was just a barrel of laughs from birth to death, then we would have learnt nothing. Bravo for seeking help, many don’t, just hope it all goes away. Keep on improving and my good wishes.

maxozFri 08 Feb 13 (02:18pm)

jack,

with all the talk about peptides and such, no noise has been raised about pain-killing drugs.

how many time have we seen an injured player back in the second half after a “pain-killing” injection.

surely, numbing pain is performance enhancing? well, his (or her) performance wouldn’t be up to much without the treatment!

Jack the InsiderFri 08 Feb 13 (02:22pm)

Sad thing is the locals issued can be used as masking agents, Maxoz.

BazzaFri 08 Feb 13 (02:19pm)

Unless they go after and jail the chemists, sport scientists, high performance managers the only thing that will change are the players. They will just bring in the next lot of guinea pigs, fill them full of their latest scientific experiment and let them run around until they breakdown or fail a drug test.

Jack the InsiderFri 08 Feb 13 (02:23pm)

Agreed, Bazza. Let’s get ‘em all.

avandonk@bigpond.net.auFri 08 Feb 13 (02:35pm)

Jack the Insider
Fri 08 Feb 13 (01:48pm)
Good to see you back, Bert. Heads or tails?
Que?

Our lab at the time I retired had solved the structure of eight of the twelve human hormone receptors worldwide! EGF and HGF were just two. I do know what I am talking about I hope.
It is also quite well known that to abuse these substances will lead you to an early grave.
It is an immutable law of the Universe that there is no free lunch.
I do not know what sporting talent is but I know it when I see it. It is the juxtaposition of fluid movement against almost insurmountable odds! Bert

LucasFri 08 Feb 13 (02:37pm)

If I was innocent I would be out there telling the world I’m innocent.
It’s the one’s who are no where to be heard from that look suspicous.

StringsFri 08 Feb 13 (02:38pm)

Mumbs, Would anyone object if our politicians took some performance enhancing drugs?

AnnieFri 08 Feb 13 (02:40pm)

Perhaps that Horse Lasagna has a possibility to it. The nobbled horse falls down dead, then turns up in the Lasagna, drugs in tact. Two for one so to speak. The Caboolture Boys could probably help here.

Bill GrieveFri 08 Feb 13 (02:40pm)

Love him or hate him Phil Gould has hit the nail on the head,and why doesn’t the ACC come out and name names,bastards.

Jack the InsiderFri 08 Feb 13 (02:48pm)

I agree it sounds rough, Bill. There are two reports - one for the public, one for the AFP. The repprt for the AFP contains specific allegations to be investigated. Yes, it might be tarring a few players who ate innocent but they can’t name those named in allegations without due process.

chrisFri 08 Feb 13 (02:46pm)

Yes Jack Grace is in his novel but not historically correct> the greatest Englnd bat of the time before Grace was a chap by the the name of Fuller Pilch. Pilch appears in the Flashman novel “Flashman’s Lady” by George MacDonald Fraser. In the novel Pilch is caught and bowled by Flashman in a fictional game set at Lord’s between Rugby Old Boys and Kent in 1842. Red ‘em’all Jack.....What a guy. Classic stuff.

Jack the InsiderFri 08 Feb 13 (02:48pm)

Flashman’s Lady is one of a number of Flashman books sitting well loved and read on my bookshelf, Chris.

RobinFri 08 Feb 13 (02:46pm)

the plumber
Fri 08 Feb 13 (12:44pm)
No you have that wrong. prostitution is a very honest sport. You pay for what you get and everyone leaves satisfied

Jack the Insider

Jack the Insider is a highly placed, dedicated servant of the nation with close ties to leading figures in politics, business and the union movement. Jack tends to be present at crucial moments in world history, ready to grapple with huge events and give them a gentle nudge. His real identity must remain unknown for obvious reasons. Jack's new book The Insider's Guide To Power In Australia is available from Random House.